New Jersey has done a lot in recent years to improve its maternal mortality rates, which were among the worst in the nation, and even worse for black moms.
But one population continues to drive the number of maternal deaths, and that's women struggling with addiction during pregnancy.
Now, yesterday, I reported on the stigma they often face when seeking care and proper treatment.
Today, in part two of my report, I speak to addiction recovery specialists who are making a difference for this vulnerable population and who are helping to save lives.
Being a mother has definitely, I feel like, heal the inner child for sure, and being here has helped me as well and understand a lot of things that I didn't understand as a young woman.
They welcomed me with open arms.
They didn't treat me like I was a criminal.
They didn't shame me because of my prior drug use.
They were just there for me physically and emotionally.
Kelsey Russell and Amanda Brennan are new moms in recovery at the Center for Great Expectations in Somerset.
It's a facility that treats expecting and new moms struggling with addiction all the way from conception through six years postpartum.
When we think about what gets a woman to the point that she is using substances during her pregnancy and when she has young children, we see women who have experienced complex trauma, which means trauma that is ongoing.
It's not only bad things that happen, but not having your basic needs met.
That trauma is an underlying reason for the startling statistic that addiction is the number one cause of maternal death in New Jersey.
58% of all maternal deaths.
So at Great Expectations, they're working to meet the social and emotional needs of the patient.
From inpatient care to IOP or intensive outpatient plus supports like therapy, parenting classes, peer recovery specialists and doulas to meet the needs of the patient all the way through the perinatal process.
Bringing in someone that's in crisis, in trauma, reuniting them with their children, taking them through their pregnancy and then beyond.
But then it's about offering continuous treatment, whether it's an IOP, an outpatient setting after that.
But where are they going to live?
It's about helping them find a safe home, a maybe employment, educational opportunities for themselves and their children.
Dr. Mollie Nisen is an addiction medicine specialist who's also treating the whole patient at her perinatal addiction medicine program at Cooper University Hospital.
She points out the disparities are even worse for people of color, where moms and babies are significantly more likely to die in the first year postpartum.
People of color are less likely to access addiction treatment, to access medication for addiction treatment.
So much of what we do is outreaching particularly to communities of color, to make sure that they are able to access services within our program.
But make no mistake, this holistic approach is rare in New Jersey, and it's most often not well, pregnant people struggling with addiction encounter.
They are afraid.
Almost universally, when I talk to them that they are going to be punished for substance use or for struggling with substance use and or that their babies or other children will be taken from them.
If and when their children are removed from their care and they end up in this kind of like, listless days where their their motivation for recovery has been taken away.
It feels really hopeless.
And that is the place where I have seen people really struggle.
And that's where moms are at a greater risk of overdose.
And yet our current system will separate the mom and the baby.
And we think about the attachment when that happens, when they're separated.
So we need to be looking at early relational health models that treat the parent and the child as a system.
You could relapse and maybe get into treatment and mitigate that.
And having a continuum of care and an organization that understands that relapse is part of recovery is something that everyone that's in that situation, that's in early or mid-to-late recovery will benefit from.
People just need to realize that, you know, addiction is a disease.
You know, we don't choose to be addicted to anything.
And that people, when they want help and get help, that you should, you know, treat them like they're a human being.
Which is exactly what Russell and Brennan say they've experienced here.
Center of Great Expectations is definitely the start of a beautiful beginning for him and I and I will tell him about it one day.
And I'm proud that I came and I healed and I'm getting healthy for him.
A mother's love.
Perhaps the greatest motivation of all.